Well, it was good to see your faces. Thank you for the packages!  I love Duluth and I love Sister Richardson and I love being a missionary. A came to church yesterday and she is going to get baptized on the 25th! We are teaching a lady name J and I know more about her cat fuzzy than I do about her. She is really great and she is going to fit right in with the ward. We had our second lesson with her and she had read 8 chapters of the Book of Mormon! We are going to get her a skirt so that she will come to church. We are really excited for school to start so that all the UMD students will come back into town. I LOVE THE BOOK OF MORMON! We are reading it as a mission before Easter and I am learning so much. Nephi is a stud.

 Hey dad, thanks for being a 007 fan. Yesterday we were eating lunch with a member and her husband is really less active and he opened right up to me after I was able to carry a pretty detailed conversation about Bond. I asked him to kneel with us l and say the closing prayer and his wife was floored when he agreed. Happy New Years Everyone! Read your scriptures! I LOVE YOU!

Duluth is the greatest place in the entire world. I LOVE it here! We live right off of Lake Superior. It is HUGE! It literally looks like the ocean. There is SO much snow and it just keeps a coming. And we live in the cutest apartment. This won't mean anything to you but the Duluth ward is SO SO SO Minnestoan. Only in Duluth does the councilor giving his talk in church yesterday compare the gospel to Duck Dynasty. And people here are really nice. We laugh so hard when people are saying sorry as they are shutting the door in our face. 

   Sister Richardson is incredible! She is from California. And she is really cool. We have already been led to really prepared people. We went to Superior WI on Saturday and we taught 6 people Restorations lessons on the their doorstep and 5 of them accepted return appointments! We knocked into a kid named D who's friend had just given him a Book of Mormon and had already invited him to church the next day. We are going back to teach him and his mom tonight! We also knocked into a woman who in the 80's sent in for a free tape from the church and it helped with her depression but she had no idea that there was a church in the area!

  There are three sets of missionaries in our ward and we are going to baptize like crazy. We have the zone leaders and us and our district leader and his companion. They both have set baptisms and the Elders gave us their investigator A who is going to get baptized next month! 

  I was praying the other night and I said "Heavenly Father I'm so grateful for all the hard times I went through in Andover that have gotten me to where I am" and then I paused and thought wow did I really say that. And then I pondered about it for a while until I came to the conclusion that I really am grateful because everything I went through there has prepared me to be here and to be a STL. I feel like i'm learning a life time of life lessons all shoved into 18 months. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone! I love you ALL! Love, Sister Szabo

Alright Alright Alright this morning I turn to sister smith and say "Either my will is finally aligned with Heavenly Fathers or I am getting transfered" and then the phone vibed and it was President. Everyone pray that I don't get frostbite BECAUSE I'm going up north to Duluth. I will be serving in North Shore. Oh baby. I'm going to be a sister training leader. I can't even keep track of the keys to our car let a lone take care of other sisters but I guess God knows what he is doing. I'm going to be companions with Sister Richardson. We are going to be the test drive for the mission for having STL companionships. Oh and we are white washing because the sister that was there got sent home so President called and talked to me about regaining the trust of the members. Yee Haw. I'm most excited to see the Northern Lights! So cool!

 

     I'm really sad to leave Sister Smith and that I'm going to miss Sister M"s baptism. It has been so cool teaching Sister M, her countenance has literally changes since she has started reading the Book of Mormon. Me and Sister Smith taught really well together. She is really smart so she explains the doctrine and then I chime in and finish off and testify. I got to go on exchanges back to Med Lake. It was incredible! They have been really struggling so I brought my old planners and set up a bunch of appointments with people that I had met when I was there.  I got to see P and P. THE WHOLE FAMILY GOT BAPTIZED!! I'm gotta come back here in a year when they get sealed in the temple!

So we had set up where and when we were going to Skye but now that I'm getting shipped out of here I will have to let you know next week.

Last night we went to the Mormon Chorale Christmas Concert with Sister M. It was pretty legit. We have been shoveling like work horses. It really softens peoples hearts.

Man I wish I had time to tell you all the miracles and tender mercies that we see everyday. Things as small as Elder Hicken finding my name tag in the snow to us feeling like we need to stop by a potential gator and he answers the door and says "I just told me wife that I needed to call you two."  Pretty much what I'm getting at is that being a missionary is the best thing in the entire world.

 I know that this is God's work! I l am so thankful for the atonement and I love the Book of Mormon. I love you all. Merry Christmas! Love, Sister Szabo

The young women made us blankets for Christmas!

Alright here we go again. I can't believe how fast time is going. Sister M is incredible and she loves the Book of Mormon! She is rock solid and she even brought butter to the Christmas Party. Man being a missionary is the greatest. We feel like we need to walk down a street and Sister M "just happened" to be getting her mail at the moment we walked past and now she is bringing butter to the ward Christmas Party! We are going to try and move her baptism date up because we set it for the same day as the youth retreat and none of the Bishopric would be able to come. Yeah so everyone else dropped us so we are starting from scratch again. Yay for knocking. I have never been so cold and so happy at the same time. It is cold. Really cold. We cheer when it is a above 0! There was a freak storm on Tuesday and our cars got grounded so we walked our butts across town to an appointment! It was insane.

 President had me bear my testimony at Zone Conference about my conversion as a missionary. It was actually a pretty cool experience. It was in the same chapel that I had my first zone conference in so I talked about how I was miserable and hating life the first time I sat in this chapel and how when we align our will with God, we can be happy and love doing His work. We got to watch Miracle after Zone Conference is was awesome! The Roushars that we live with put up a Christmas Tree just for us down stairs! It made us so happy. Sister Smith said I am starting to say some words like a Minnesotan. OH my goodness I almost forgot to tell you, I get to go on exchanges back in Med Lake this week. I'm so excited. I CAN"T BELIEVE THAT MCKAY IS HOME! I can't believe it!

Love you all!

 We do service every week at the Stepaniaks and we found these little gems and we somehow got roped into doing a photo shoot with them on. Sister Stepianks son is on a mission in Alaska and she is convicned that we are going to get married. She even made me promise that she could be in the delieverly room when I have his babies. HAHAHA Oh boy! I love the Andover ward.

 Sister Hartley! She has been up north FOREVER and she finally got transferred back down to the cities. Have I told you about the separate coat rooms they have in Minnesota chapels? We are standing in one. So many hangers.

 We went to a members home for lunch and they put this sign out for us!

HELLO! Want to hear the coolest thing ever? Remember K that got baptized when I was in St. Cloud? President called me last night and told me he has just been to the baptism of his ENTIRE family. K baptized his mom and dad and two little brothers. It made me so extremely happy! I'm telling you K is going places in life. Do you remember after I got set apart and President Ivins said he felt prompted to tell me that I would be teaching some of God's very important children? When K got baptized I had the distinct thought that he is one of them. So cool!

Sister M finally wants to get baptized! She is going to get baptized at the beginning of January. If I get transferred...heaven help me.

We were knocking down doors last Monday and we knocked into a lady named D who never goes to church and never prays but she went to church the day before and prayed for help. She started crying on the door step and let us in. I truly felt like an instrament in God's hand at that moment.

Thanksgiving was weird but great. I sure love Minnesota. You may have to remind me that I said that when I am freezing my butt off.

I cannot fathom that it is already December. AHH!

Funniest story of the week was yesterday in Sunday School when we were talking about the Preisthood and Sister M was wondering why only men held it and she was having a hard time understanding until Sister Izzo said "It's like Christmas lights, there would be no Christmas lights up if it weren't for women." The men put them up but it's because of the women.

I LOVE YOU!

Love, Sister Szabo